


Biological Imperative

by stinkerson_bramblepelt



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Abduction, Cunnilingus, Dinosaurs, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Kidnapping, Murder, Near Death Experiences, Other, Panic Attacks, Post-Cell Games Saga, Rape, Sexual Abuse, Suicide Attempt, Vaginal Sex, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-05-18 03:55:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5897326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stinkerson_bramblepelt/pseuds/stinkerson_bramblepelt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fifteen years ago you had an unexpected encounter with a monster. Now he's back, and he wants something from you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Erl-King will do you grievous harm.  
> —Angela Carter

When the monster bursts through the studio floor, the resulting shockwave knocks everyone down. Tables go skittering across the floor and rolling chairs bounce off the walls. You’re struggling to get to your feet, dizzy from the sounds of crunching plaster and screaming coworkers, when the nearby vending machine tips over and lands glass-side-down on your left leg.

At first there’s a jolt like a static shock through your knee. Then nothing. Then, after three seconds of numbness, a sudden flowering of the most abominable pain you’ve ever felt in your life. You want to scream but there is no scream you can make that would do this feeling justice. Distantly, you realize that your leg has not been severed because you can feel glass shards in your ankle.

If only it had been cut off you might have been able to pull away. Your coworkers and friends are all running around you to get to the emergency exit. Some of them slip in the pool of blood spreading from your opened knee. One person stops and gives the fallen vending machine a halfhearted push before gasping and darting for the stairs. In a matter of seconds it’s just you and the cameraman, who you only know is there because the monster orders him to stay.

Just off screen, you listen as the monster—Cell, as he calls himself—details exactly what he’s done and what he intends to do now. A tournament. Inevitable victory. Then the murder of every human on Earth. Typical supervillain shit, you think. There’s a lightness to your thoughts that really shouldn’t be there. Endorphins, maybe.

It’s all so ridiculous. Destroying the world. Bullshit. Is this idiot even listening to himself?

“And then what, stupid?” you cry out.

Your eyes are open but your vision has all but whited out from the pain in your leg.

“So you beat everyone. So you kill the whole world. Then what? The solar system? The universe? You’ll run out of people to kill. Or people will stop being frightened of you.”

Cell’s footfalls come closer and closer.

“Bold words from someone on death’s door,” he says, and you can feel the energy radiating off him, raising the hairs on your neck.

Part of you is convinced none of this is real and you’re not actually having a conversation with the most frightening killer the world has ever seen. Either way, what does it matter? You’re out of your skull with how shitty you feel and it’s all his fault.

“Or maybe you’ll die,” you suggest. “Better that than floating in the void with nothing and no one. You gonna kill yourself when this is all over?”

“You’re not afraid of me.”

It’s a statement, not a question.

“Interesting,” he continues. “Everyone is supposed to be afraid of me. Do you not fear death?”

You feel like you’re floating: like all this is happening to someone else.

“Do you? Because it’s coming for you just like it’s coming for me.”

“I am not going to die.”

“Wanna bet?”

“It is not wise to challenge me, human.”

He sounds more amused than angry. You laugh at him, surprising both of you.

“Oh, rich. The brainless killer’s gonna lecture me about wisdom. Tell me what comes after all this. Tell me your plan. Or, if that’s too challenging for you, you could just kill me.”

You can see his outline, the alien crown of his head like a dreadful tower. His magenta pupils cut through the haze like distant headlights.

“Very strange for one so fragile to court death like this.”

His voice is soft. Gentle, almost. You blink. There’s dust and grit all over the soft flesh of your eyes.

“Come on. It would be easy. Easier than thinking.”

He raises and lowers one glowing hand.

“Hmph. You’ll burn with the rest of them.”

And with that he flies away.

“Coward,” you spit. “Fucking coward.”

But there’s no one there to hear it. The cameraman fled when Cell turned his attention to you. You’re unconscious before the emergency crews reach the top floor.

• • •

The city is in such chaos that your mangled leg doesn’t get the treatment it needs. Who cares about a non-mortal wound when the hospitals are full of dying people and the world is set to end in ten days? By the time the crisis passes, it’s too late. You have a permanent limp. It could easily be rectified with a brace, but you don’t want to rectify it. You were there. The monster Cell destroyed your leg, if unintentionally. It happened. It will always have happened.

Everyone has a story about the Cell Games. Everyone knows someone who disappeared in Nickytown. You have your bum leg and the memory of him deciding not to kill you. The camera that day didn’t catch anything you said. You never tell anyone that you had an actual conversation with him. Not your parents, not your friends, not the therapist you see intermittently for a few years. Sometimes you’re not sure the conversation happened. He never did answer you. Not that it matters. Maybe you made it all up.

Like a lot of people, the physical wound isn’t the only thing you carry away from that strange and terrifying period of history. The nightmares and panic attacks force you to drop out of the intern program at Waves and Rocks. A disability pension gives you just enough to get by. You move to a little capsule house in the forest, partially supported by your parents, and take up gardening. It’s quiet out there.

• • •

When your sink water comes up black and foul one morning, you’re almost excited for an excuse to walk a couple hundred yards to the well and see what’s going on. Clouds in the east are threatening rain but the breeze is still soft and warm. It’s a bright, luminous day.

The ground is soft under your gumboots. Worms are coming up for air all over the path. Your cane makes a pleasant sucking sound whenever you pull it from the mud. It’s a couple minutes before you notice that the sucking sound is all you can hear. No birds. No squirrels. Maybe the coming storm is a bad one. Maybe they’ve all moved to safer ground.

You’re fifty yards from the well when you see him standing in the path ahead. He isn’t exactly trying to sneak up on you. It doesn’t stop you dead in your tracks, but it does slow you down a significant amount. This is so different from the other episodes you’ve had that for a long moment you wonder if it isn’t real. Usually you just catch a flash of something out of the corner of your eye and go into panic mode until you realize it’s nothing. Sometimes you wake up thinking ladybugs crawling on the ceiling are his magenta eyes boring into you. It isn’t fear, exactly. It’s more like painful awareness.

He’s been dead a long time now. And yet there he stands, as if alive. He strikes quite an imposing figure. The green of his armor is acidic in contrast to the natural green of the surrounding trees. He’s not as bulky as you remember him being. Not as tall, either, though he still towers over you. His eyes are trained on you and one corner of his mouth is twisted up in a smirk.

Vividly real hallucination or no, you decide to handle this intrusion with the same attitude that carried you through your first and thus far only near death experience.

“You’re in my way, asshole.”

If he reacts to this, you don’t see it. You look down at the ground as you step around him through a patch of ferns. Two steps later you’re flat on your ass with the wind knocked out of you. Cell looms over you. His face is a mask of fury.

“Are you quite sure?” he hisses. “Really? ‘You’re in my way’? I grace you with my presence—you, who I could destroy a million times over without breaking a sweat—and all you have to say is ‘you’re in my way’?!”

The mud is startlingly cold through your thin t-shirt. Cell breaks the staring contest by shutting his eyes and sighing.

“Forgive me. That was rude. We were both rude. I ought not to have knocked you down, though your current position certainly does bring back memories.”

There’s that smirk again. He extends a hand to help you back up. When you don’t take it, he grabs your left arm and hauls you up by force. His grip is like iron. You have a split second vision of him crushing your arm like a ketchup packet and sending blood spurting in all directions. Instead he lets go and leaves you unsteady on your feet. Standing without your cane is an uncomfortable business at the best of times.

“Just…just a second, I need—”

Before you can finish bending down awkwardly to grab it, Cell retrieves your cane from the mud and hands it to you.

“You shouldn’t need that,” he says, frowning.

“Well, a long time ago, a great big shithead busted through the floor of my workplace and tipped a vending machine onto my leg. Maybe this will shock you but that kind of thing has a way of permanently altering a person’s body.”

This can’t really be happening. You have that distinct feeling of not being rooted in your own flesh. Your consciousness is hovering just a bit off center of the rest of you. If this is a dream, then it doesn’t matter how you talk to him. If it isn’t, he’s probably going to kill you anyway, so why not be honest?

“Leaving aside your hostile tone for the moment, I wasn’t referring to the accident. I was referring to the aftermath. Why didn’t you have your leg fixed? I know all about this world’s technology and its social services. You could have had it replaced for a pittance.”

He seems genuinely confused.

“Now hold on,” you say. “Hold on there. Why are we spending any time talking about my leg when there’s the much more pressing issue of you being alive after you were vaporized fifteen years ago?”

“I asked first.”

“Yeah, you also touched me without my permission and killed a really absurd number of people, so I don’t think I owe you an answer. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s some shit going on in my well that I need to look at.”

“Don’t bother. I destroyed it.”

“What? Why?”

“I needed to be sure you would exit your house and I decided that that would do the trick.”

“You couldn’t have just knocked on the goddamned door?”

“Would you have answered?”

Far away, a faint tickling sound of thunder flutters and wanes.

“No.”

“Exactly. I wanted to see you, and it would have been impolite to enter your home, so I needed you to come out.”

“So not only have you destroyed my water supply, you’ve also denied me the right to decline from interacting with you. That’s extremely creepy. And rude! Doesn’t really get much ruder than that.”

He goes quiet, staring off into the distance before speaking again. There’s no way this is actually happening. You just called Cell ‘creepy’ right to his face.

“I suppose you’re right. I don’t like to think of myself as ‘rude.’ It goes against my personal code.”

“How can you be more opposed to being rude than you are to committing mass murder?”

He doesn’t answer. Far, far off in the distance, a slightly bigger clap of thunder rumbles in the mountains. If you didn’t know any better, you’d say he looks troubled.

“Please believe me when I say that I’m sorry for what I’m about to do. I hope you’ll understand.”

Before you can reply, Cell scoops you up in his arms bridal-style and levitates about ten feet off the ground. You almost drop your cane and end up gripping it between your hands and knees like an upside down witch.

“I’d keep your eyes closed if I were you, my dear.”

You would tell him never to call you ‘my dear’ if he didn’t suddenly zoom forward at what feels like eight thousand miles per hour. You couldn’t keep your eyes open if you wanted to. They’re streaming tears and your lids are clamping shut. The wind is screaming and tearing at your skin. It feels like the sheer force of the air is going to flay the flesh off your bones. You face forward for a split second before turning and leaning into the hard surface of Cell’s chest. Anything to protect your face from the wind.

After several minutes of ludicrous speed, he slows to a stop and touches down. His feet make that squeaky mechanical sound that sometimes crops up in your dreams.

“You can open your eyes now.”

The meadow is large and ringed on all sides by a dense pine forest. It’s chillier here, and you can’t see any storm clouds on the horizon. He sets you gently on the ground and you immediately fall to your knees as your stomach rebels against recent events. The vomit that spews from your mouth is thick with breakfast.

Shaking and sputtering, it begins to dawn on you in a very physical way that all this is really happening. You wipe your mouth with the back of one hand and slowly—so very slowly—turn your head to the left. Cell is standing there with his arms crossed, just as he was when he appeared in the woods near your house. He’s real. This is real. Your throat is burning, your joints are like water, and you can feel the telltale sparks of a panic attack flaring to life in your gut.

Cell takes a single step toward you but stops when you flip over, scrambling away like a crab. You need to keep him in sight.

“Get away from me,” you say.

Your voice is raspy and ragged, trailing into hysteria.

“I know there’s nothing I can do to stop you, so spare me the monologue. I’m telling you. Don’t touch me. Not while I’m like this.”

He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t come any closer either. Just stands there, expressionless. Your arms give out, and you collapse onto the ground, taking heaving breaths and counting out loud to fifty as you ride out the attack. The sky is perfectly clear overhead. You imagine falling into it and leaving the ground behind.

Cell speaks when your breathing is back under control.

“Have you recovered?”

“You’re still not allowed to touch me,” you mumble.

“I wasn’t going to. Are you all right now?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Will you stay put for a short while?”

You lean up on your elbows and look him in the eye. He’s serious.

“Where on Earth would I even go?”

“I’ll take that as a yes. Don’t move an inch from that spot.”

And with that he zooms off, much faster than he had before judging by how the pine trees bend around him. It’s not quite fast enough to break the sound barrier but it’s still shocking to behold. In less than ten seconds he reappears in front of you. He doesn’t fly back. He just appears. It almost jolts you into another panic attack but you strangle the feeling down. Cell holds out a capsule.

“I brought your house. Where would you like it?”

“…back where it was. I would like it to be back there. I would like to be back there as well.”

“That’s not an option,” he says.

He deploys the capsule in the middle of the meadow, on the flattest stretch of ground. Your house poofs into sight. You decide to ask the question that you should have asked when he first showed up on the path in the woods.

“What the hell is going on?”

“That’s rather a long story. I don’t think you’re in a fit state to hear all of it just now.”

“Oh, and whose fault is that? Why did you bring me…where are we?”

He smiles. You’ve never seen a smile so simultaneously punchable and impervious to punching.

“Far, far away from any people. Outside the range of any of your communication devices. You have no chance of rejoining the world unassisted, and there is no one here to assist you. Start thinking of this place as your new home.”

The silence is overwhelming. You had liked being mostly isolated before, but you were never totally alone. You had online friends. You called your parents every couple of weeks. Sometimes trucks passed by on their way to the mountains. And now, in a matter of minutes, all that has been taken from you.

“Is this all because of that one stupid conversation we had before you went and got yourself blown up? Really?”

“As I’ve said, that’s a long story, and—”

“Fuck off. I knew you were twisted and petty, but this is surprising. So what’s the plan? Did you bring me out here just to watch me suffer? Gonna watch me die of exposure when I try to go get help? Maybe I’ll get eaten by wild animals.”

His eyes are wide and he isn’t smiling anymore. He looks like he’s about to speak but you cut him off before he can start.

“Why don’t you just kill me already? Tear my throat out. Make me drown in my own blood. I know you want to. All you want to do is kill.”

He raises a brow ridge at that. You’re grappling with your shaky voice like it’s an out of tune instrument, struggling to keep from screeching and howling. It sounds as foreign as a recording taken when you didn’t know you were being recorded.

“You’ve got one trick, Cell. Come on. Kill me. It’s what you were made for. It’s gotta be the only thing you really want.”  
He’s really staring now.

“I’m the only one you can kill, right? If you kill a bunch of people the old heroes will notice and then they’ll kill you. You can’t kill them because they already killed you once. You’re gonna kill me because I was the only one who wasn’t scared. Well, why don’t you? What are you waiting for?”

A stiff breeze cuts through the meadow, raising goosebumps all over your flesh. You can feel the mud on your back starting to dry and get crackly.

“You’re wrong,” he says.

He retrieves your cane from where you dropped it and tosses it so it lands just next to you.

“You really think I came to find you—watched you in the woods for weeks after my return from hell—because I want to kill you? If I wanted to kill you, I could have done it a thousand times over long before now. I could have made your suffering legendary. ”

This is all wrong. He’s supposed to kill you. He’s supposed to laugh in your face as he tears your arms off or some shit like that. That’s what monsters do.

Weeks. He watched you for weeks. Why?

“I don’t understand.”

“You’re not meant to. I would advise you to go inside and wait for me to come back. I have business to which I need to attend. If you wander far from here I cannot guarantee your safety.”

And then he takes off again, leaving trees swaying in his wake.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which escape is attempted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some eyes can eat you.  
> —Angela Carter

About four miles into your escape attempt, you start to wonder if you’ve made a terrible mistake. The leg brace—the one you kept hidden with your secret bugout bag under the loose board in your kitchen—is starting to chafe really badly against the soft meat of your thigh. It’s too tight for you to grease up the irritated skin properly. All you can do is rub a little Vaseline into the edge of the brace and hope that it does the trick.

            Maneuvering your leg into the jointed brace in the first place was a tricky business, especially since you’ve gained some weight since the last time you wore it. You were so used to being off balance that wearing it gives you a distinctly uncanny feeling. It’s been a long time since you’ve cared to walk without your cane.

            Inside the bugout bag are a number of useful items: two liters of sterile water, portable rations, a first aid kit, a flashlight, a length of rope, a map, and some other stuff. According to the map, there’s a ranger outpost about fifteen miles north of where Cell dropped your house, so that’s where you’re headed. At least, there was one there several years ago when the map was printed. There’s a stun gun with a dozen or so charges in it that’s supposed to be capable of repelling a T-Rex at close range. You hope you don’t have to find out if it really works or not.

            Escape may very well be impossible, but you’ve got to try. There are still people that love you, somewhere. You can’t let them down. You can’t let this monster reel you in.

            The woods are cold. They smell of pine and mushrooms. All around birds are calling and squirrels are jumping from tree to tree. The ground is soft. Every step you take leaves a footprint. Even if you leave an obvious trail all the way to the ranger station it’s still better than waiting around for the homicidal bug man to come back.

            The ground is rocky and laced with roots after a few miles of mud. Sunlight dapples the ground through fanning bunches of leaves and a brook burbles and chuckles somewhere nearby. For a few breathless minutes, a family of deer observes you from the top of a hill before darting away. Even though you’re fleeing for your life you can still appreciate what a beautiful place this is. If you make it through this mess you’ll have to come back sometime.

            That’s a big “if,” however, and now you’ve reached the difficult part of your journey. The woods end at the edge of a cliff looking out over a flat, exposed stretch of land. Getting down there in the first place is one thing. Then it’s four miles through scrubland before you meet the woods again: four miles through the heart of dinosaur country.

            It’s time for a little break before the going gets dangerous. The large bottle of water in your bag is unwieldy but the contents are perfectly refreshing. Sitting down makes you realize just how tired you are already, and how sore the bottoms of your feet are. If you’re still alive tomorrow you’re hardly going to be able to move.

            No part of this makes sense. Cell is alive, for one thing. Cell doesn’t want to kill you, but he also wants to keep you away from everyone else in the world. What for? You can’t imagine that it’s part of some diabolical plot.

            Suppose it is, though? What the hell kind of plot could it be?

            Now. What if he catches you before you can make it back to civilization? Best case scenario: he drags you back. Worst case scenario: he kills you. Then you think of something that really gives you pause. What if you do make it out, and then he follows you and kills a bunch of people in a rage? Maybe he’s using you as some kind of pet to keep himself occupied. Shoot, maybe he’s out killing a bunch of people right now.

            Why does he even remember you in the first place? That’s the real mystery. If he really doesn’t want to kill you, then what does he want? What intentions could he possibly even have? You don’t like to think about it. It can’t be anything good.

            He teleported back to you in the meadow. Maybe he could only do that because he knew where you were. He did tell you to stay put. You figure that if he could teleport to you without knowing your exact location, he would have said something about it. He seemed to be taking pleasure in detailing just how isolated you were and how hopeless any escape attempt would be. If he had that specific power he definitely would have said something about it.

           You pull out your phone. It has a faint signal, but nothing strong enough to get in touch with anyone. It’s at this point—gazing uncertainly from the edge of the cliff—that you realize how quiet it’s gotten. No birds. No squirrels. You scramble to your feet and spin around, looking in every possible direction. No one’s there, but you know that won’t be the case for long.

            A fallen tree has made a miniature cave where its roots tore out the ground. The thick canopy of other trees mostly hides it from being visible above the ground. Without a moment’s hesitation you wedge yourself deep inside the muddy hollow, bag and all.

            A minute passes. Another minute. You begin to think it might have been a false alarm, and you’re just about to crawl back out when a terrific scream rends the air.

            “Show yourself!” Cell bellows.

            The sky isn’t visible from where you’re holed up, but you can readily imagine him circling overhead and quaking with fury.

            “I know you’re around here somewhere!”

            There’s a whooshing sound. He yells something indistinct from very far away, and then in a split second he’s back. He must be flying around all over trying to find you. Why? Why does he care so much?

            “YOU CAN’T HIDE FROM ME! I CAN _SENSE_ YOU! I CAN HEAR THE VALVES IN YOUR HEART OPENING AND CLOSING.”

            _So come get me, stupid. If you really can._

            You’re weak in comparison to other people, to say nothing of the opponents Cell faced in the distant past. You bet that as long as he doesn’t know exactly where you are, he can’t lock on to your ki signature or whatever it’s called. That thought is the only thing keeping you from spiraling into another panic attack. Shivering and surrounded by the roots of a dead tree, your nerves are wound tighter than piano wire. He can’t see your hiding place from above the canopy but if he happens to fly down and look at this very specific part of the cliff he’ll find you for sure.

            And then…you don’t know. You don’t know what he’ll do.

            You wait until you hear birds chirping again before crawling out of the hole. The forest is still dead silent but other than that there’s no sign of him. If he’s looking for you in the trees then you need to get out of the trees and onto the scrubland as soon as possible. Rubbing your head with one hand sends a cascade of loose dirt to the ground. It’s a good thing no one else is here to see what a mess you are.

            It’s almost a sheer drop down to the grass from where you are but there’s no time to find a safer descent. Your hands are shaking as you tie your rope around the tree trunk nearest the cliff’s edge. The knot isn’t pretty, but it’ll do in a pinch. Rope in hand and balancing on the edge, you really wish you had thought to bring gloves. Your upper body strength is nothing to sneeze at but this is going to wreck your hands.

            Breathing deeply and leaning hardest on your braced leg, you begin descending hand over hand down the side of the cliff. Your palms are on fire by the time you’re halfway to the end of the rope and your back is shaking with the strain of climbing. If you lose your grip, you will most certainly die. The threat of your imminent demise is a much better motivator than it has been for most of your life. Now it has some real hefty immediacy to it.

            Somehow you make it to the end of the rope. There’s still at least ten feet between you and the ground, but the fall won’t kill you. Before you can decide how best to let go, your ravaged hands make the decision for you and you slip from the rope, scrabbling uselessly at the dirt wall in front of you before flailing backwards. The ground is not kind. The bag on your back absorbs most of the impact but pain still lances through your back in frightening, electric bursts.

            This could be it. This could be where you make your grave. You could lie here, helpless, until some predator comes along and eats you alive.

            For a few panicked minutes you can’t stop thinking that your spine is broken. When at last you test your arms and legs and then rise to your feet, you find yourself sore and shaken but otherwise unharmed.

            The GPS locator isn’t damaged, thank goodness, but your phone has been reduced to a useless collection of broken circuit boards and powdered glass. Well, it wasn’t helpful anyway. The water bottle has been crushed into a strange kidney shape but it’s miraculously still sealed. Your cane is a little warped but otherwise fine. Most importantly, the stun gun shows no signs of damage.

            The rope is too high up for you to grab, and even if you could you have no way of getting it down. It’s the most glaring evidence of your location and there’s nothing you can really do about it. Stomach churning, you turn north and start jogging. There’s a worrying twinge in your left knee, and the top edge of the brace is chafing worse than ever, but you don’t dare go any slower.

            The scrubland isn’t devoid of trees but it also doesn’t offer any kind of meaningful cover. Stealth doesn’t seem to be an option. Time to run like hell and hope for the best. The sun is making you sweat even though it isn’t that warm out. You don’t have any layers you can take off. Even if you don’t run into any dangerous animals this will still be the worst part of your escape.

            Far off to the right a family of long necked dinosaurs is ripping leaves from one of the few trees. You can never remember if they’re apatosaurs or brontosaurs or the ones that start with D. The important thing is that they aren’t interested in eating you and as long as they’re nearby, then that probably means there aren’t any predators prowling around.

            Of course, as soon as you think that, barely ten minutes into your dash across the scrublands, the long necks look quickly in your direction and then turn and flee.

            Off to the left a menacing shape is raising a dust cloud and barreling straight toward you.

            Of course it sees you before it sees the other dinosaurs.

            Thank goodness it’s only a T-Rex. As it gets closer you can see it isn’t a particularly large specimen. It’s still big enough to bite you in half if that’s what it wants to do. If the stun gun works it should take down this thing with no trouble. If.

            You grab the gun out of your bag and flip the safety off. The midmorning sun is shining off the rex’s brown scales. It’s looking at you with an expression you can’t read because you have no idea if these goddamned animals even communicate with facial expressions. Its wretched little arms are moving in tandem with its legs as it bounds ever closer. Aiming the laser sight at its enormous head, you exhale and fire.

            A bolt of green energy explodes silently from the muzzle and hits the rex just under its left eye. The recoil knocks you straight onto your ass just as your pursuer crumples to the ground as well. The good news is that the gun definitely works. The bad news is that you’re weak as shit, and if you fall down one more time you’re pretty sure you’ll faint or concuss yourself.

            Not waiting to see just how unconscious the dinosaur is, you stagger back to your feet and carry on, pausing only to check your map and take a quick swig of water. Your left leg is in bad shape but there’s no time to stop. T-Rexes are solitary hunters but that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be another one nearby. Even though your thigh is rubbed raw and bleeding where it connects with the brace you know it will be so much worse without it. As long as you can keep up a steady pace the pain dulls into something mostly ignorable. Whenever you slow down it flares up into a feverish intensity. You’re pretty sure that if you keep this up your left leg is going to physically detach itself from your body and slay you.

  * • •



Even with flat terrain and no other run ins with large predators, it still takes you a long, long time to cross the scrubland. Maybe an hour, maybe more. If only you still had your phone you would be able to measure time.

            The woods come into view long before you actually reach them. The sight fills you with determination. Once you’re back under the cover of trees, you might even be able to take a long rest and get the brace off. Your run is more like a canter at this point. The skin around the brace is bleeding so readily that looking at it makes you lightheaded. Or maybe that’s just blood loss in itself, and not the sight of it. Well, either way, it’s imperative that you make it to the trees.

            Somehow, you do. A few strides into the cool shadows of the northern forest you stumble and fall, collapsing onto a blanket of dead leaves and crushing some mushrooms under your belly. You wanted to get farther in before resting but you’ve overestimated your endurance. Without the distraction of movement, the pain in your leg swells until it’s intense enough to rival what you felt fifteen years ago. Tears streaming from your eyes, you roll over and sit up. The latches and straps on the brace are slick with a sickening mix of sweat and blood but you still manage to undo all of them. The brace snaps open and your vision whites out for a few seconds.

            The skin above your knee looks like discount lunchmeat. You’re no doctor, but it seems safe to assume that the brace can’t go back on today, if it ever goes back on at all.

            “Shit’s real bad,” you say to the trees.

            The trees don’t say anything back. Rummaging through the bag, you pull out the battered first aid kit and remove some cotton swabs and gauze with your shaking hands. Wetting the cotton swabs helps get rid of the worst of the blood but there’s nothing you can do for the wound other than wrapping it up. The constricting gauze helps mute the pain somewhat. Once it’s secure, you flop back down in the dirt and stare up at the sky.

            “At least it isn’t raining yet,” you mutter, remembering the brewing storm from much earlier, before the whole abduction thing went down.

            Maybe the brace was a mistake. If you hadn’t worn it, you’re pretty sure you never would have been able to make it this far in the first place, but what does that matter if you can’t take another step now? Suppose you had ventured out with only the cane. You could easily have turned your weak ankle on a root or tripped and dislocated your knee. Even if you didn’t misstep you wouldn’t have been able to run. You would still be picking your way through the previous forest.

            Maybe there was no right decision to be made. You think back to the day years ago when the traveling salesman sold you the bugout bag but failed to sell you certain other things.

            “‘I’ll be fine with just the bag,’ I said. ‘Don’t bother with that capsule ship,’ I said. ‘I really hate to drive,’ I said. ‘If I need help I can depend on my parents or a rescue team,’ I said. ‘Why buy something if I know I’m NEVER GOING TO NEED IT?’ I SAID. You idiot. You absolute shithead.”

            A slow and distant thumping interrupts you berating yourself. You tilt your head up and spy a huge dark shape advancing across the scrubland. Huh. Almost like it’s coming straight at you. A little more observation reveals that it’s another T-Rex—an enormous, dark green one, full grown and heavily muscled—and yes, it is indeed coming straight at you. It isn’t walking terribly fast but that could change at any moment.

            It pauses when you sit up and reach for your bag. Then it continues, more slowly, as if it’s curious about what you are and what you’re doing here. It can probably smell your leg wound. Predator dinosaurs can smell blood, right? Maybe you left a blood trail behind you and it followed you from that. Add another point under “cons” for the leg brace.

            The stun gun is a little shaky in your grip, but if you miss you have at least ten charges left. Assuming the recoil doesn’t send the gun flying into your face and concussing you.

            “Ohoho, not today, not today you goddamn bastard, not today, not when I’ve got a gun with me.”

            The stun gun flashes brilliant green before buzzing loudly and shorting out. The T-Rex continues to advance. You pull the trigger again and again to no avail. Your legs won’t cooperate when you try to stand.

            Incredible. All that distance traveled and this is how you make your grave. Two separate encounters with a monster genetically engineered to be the ideal killer and you’re about to get eaten by a big stupid reptile.

            Completely out of strength, and out of fucks to give, you lie back down and wait for death. A snicker escapes your lips. Then, before you know it, your chest is heaving with how hard you’re laughing. Today was supposed to be a day for weeding. You were going to boil up some of the fancy pasta your parents sent for your birthday. Maybe play some online games with your forum group. Do some reading before bed. And now here you are, broken down and laughing uncontrollably as a carnivorous dinosaur steps closer and closer.

            The T-Rex’s monolithic head comes into view up above, silhouetted against the brilliant blue sky. Its eyes shine black against its green scales like fat beetles on a mossy log. Its teeth are long and white, big as railroad spikes and twice as sharp.

            “I don’t blame you,” you say in little more than a whisper. “You’re just following your instincts. You don’t even know that you’re following instincts. You don’t even know that you don’t have other options. Ah, shit. Fuck.”

            There’s a whooshing sound. The T-Rex stutters. Its jaw sags open, and a long string of drool splats on your chest. A jagged red line strikes across the dinosaur’s head from back to front. With a wet, fleshy ripping sound the T-Rex’s head splits completely in two, gushing blood and viscera. A fat spray of fluid drenches you before you can cover your eyes. When you wipe them clean you’re confronted with a truly grisly sight.

            The dinosaur is twitching in the seconds after its death. Its body has gone limp but it hasn’t fallen and crushed you. Cell is holding the creature in place by the ragged edges of its split head, his bone white hands stained red. His face is blazing with something like pride. With no effort at all he tosses the corpse away, felling two trees with the force of its impact.

            Cell alights on the ground with that familiar squeaky mechanical sound. His strange boot feet are on either side of your knees and his arms are crossed over his chest.

            “You’re welcome,” he says.

            “What?”

            “I just saved your life,” he says, as if speaking to a small child.

            Down in the dirt, you shake your head. It hurts where it rubs against the ground.

            “The only reason my life was in danger in the first place was because you left me in the middle of nowhere.”

            Cell frowns.

            “You would have been safe if you had stayed put like I told you. Then I wouldn’t have had to take time out of my busy schedule to follow you through the wilderness.”

            You laugh. It’s supposed to be a derisive, barking sound, but it comes out more like a gasp.

            “How long were you following me?”

            One corner of his mouth twitches upward. The sight of him smiling almost grants you the strength to spring to your feet and clock him. But, since you can barely lift up your own arms, you just think about punching him. It’s a happy thought.

            “I watched your descent from the cliff. It was quite amusing. Your confrontation with the first dinosaur impressed me a great deal. Frankly, I’m surprised you made it as far as you did before your inferior body failed you.”

            What a perfect asshole he is.

            “So you watched me run for four whole miles. Why? If you were gonna come get me, why not do it earlier?”

            “I wanted to see what you would do. As I’ve said, your performance was impressive. You did very well keeping those supplies of yours a secret.”

            “How far would you have let me go?”

            “I was going to wait until you reached the ranger station and found the watchman dead before collecting you, but extenuating circumstances made that untenable. A shame, really. I left quite a moving scene in that little cabin. It really would have convinced you of the hopelessness of your situation.”

            This is all happening to someone else.

            “You’re a sick bastard.”

            “I’ve been called much worse, my dear.”

            He looks positively triumphant. Your skin crawls at the little endearment.

            “You still haven’t told me what the hell all this is for. If you’re trying to get revenge, there’s much more straightforward and effective ways to do it. Plus, you don’t scare me. I don’t mean that in a braggy way, it’s just a fact.”

            This isn’t strictly a fact. You’re a little afraid of what he might do to other people, especially since he killed a man for the sole purpose of demoralizing you. He wants something from you, and knows that there are people you care about. You’re definitely not looking forward to when he stops finding you so amusing.

            Cell chuckles that awful, rich chuckle of his. Maybe he does scare you and you’re too out of your mind to accept it.

            “I don’t need to scare you,” he says. “That isn’t the reaction I desire from you.”

            _Then what is?_ you wonder.

            “Do you really not have anything better to do than screwing around with a stranger?”

            He shakes his head, smiling in a way that would look sad if you thought a monster like him could experience sadness, and steps to one side. You try to move away but sitting up makes spots dance in your eyes. The dizziness gets worse when Cell gives the slightest of gestures and levitates you up into his arms. This time he holds you upright instead of cradling you. When he ceases levitating you, you reflexively wrap your legs around his waist to steady yourself. A hot flush rises in your cheeks that would be obvious were it not for the liberal coating of dinosaur blood. He holds you close with his left hand cupping the side of your head, his left arm pressing lightly against your bruised back, and his right hand supporting your butt.

            Your arms are pinned awkwardly against him until he teases them out with his telekinesis and wraps them around his torso. You can feel the stub of his tail stinger under your fingers and it sends a chill down your spine. He’s uncannily smooth. It’s like trying to hold onto a newly waxed car.

            “Put me down or I’ll puke on you. I swear I will,” you mumble against his chest.

            Truth be told you don’t even have the energy to throw up. He chuckles again. You can hear it resonating somewhere in his chest. There’s no heartbeat, but some organ is pulsing with a subtle, tripping rhythm that repeats every ten seconds or so. The vibrations are hypnotic. He’s warm, not like a person but like a computer monitor. Being held by him would be pleasant if he were anyone else. Any _thing_ else.

            You close your eyes, expecting him to take off as dramatically as he did before, but he doesn’t. Instead he flies off at a leisurely pace. Well, leisurely for him. The wind is whipping at your hair but it isn’t blinding. Out of the corner of one slightly opened eye, you can see the scrubland rushing past underneath. The view of tawny grass and scattering herds of giant reptiles is genuinely beautiful. A few minutes later, the emerald expanse of the forest replaces it. From this altitude it looks a lot like a luxuriously maintained lawn, soft and welcoming.

            It takes him minutes what it took you hours to traverse. Back in the meadow, on solid ground, Cell doesn’t let you go immediately. Your arms and legs fall slack and he supports you as he walks the short distance to your front door.

            “If I put you down now, will you be able to stand on your own?”

            The words buzz in your ear.

            “Probably not,” you reply. “Definitely not without my cane, which was in that bag you left behind.”

            “I know you have other canes.”

            “I liked that one.”

            “Hm. I can go back and get it later. Now, may I please have permission to enter your home?”

            Incredulous, you tilt your head back and stare up at him. He isn’t smiling.

            “It would be rude to barge in without asking,” he continues.

            “So you’ll relocate my house and me without my permission but you won’t go inside unless I say so.”

            “I only want to make sure you can get to the bathroom safely.”

            You cock your head at him.

            “You’re covered in dirt and blood. Surely you must want to get clean.”

            Well, he’s not wrong. Your face has left a dark blotch on his chest. The way he’s looking at you seems like he doesn’t want you to get clean. Like he likes what he sees.

            “Just sit me on the front step,” you tell him, “I can get myself inside from there.”

            He sets you down on your good leg and slowly removes his hands, drawing his fingers across your cheek for just a moment before stepping away and staring off into the distance.

            Was that on purpose? His arms are crossed and his hands are balled into fists. He won’t make eye contact. Keeping him in sight, you fumble with the doorknob and hop inside. When you shut the door he’s still staring far away, a faint tremor in one side of his face.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which uncomfortable truths are revealed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little of the cold air that blows over graveyards always goes with him, it crisps the hairs on the back of my neck but I am not afraid of him; only, afraid of the vertigo with which he seizes me. Afraid of falling down.  
> —Angela Carter

You were going to save these cherry bath bombs for a holiday but fuck it. Fuck everything. Logically you should be saving up your stored water since the house is no longer attached to a well. Logically you should have died fifteen years ago. But now, death is coming. Death is here. Death is standing awkwardly on the front lawn. Time for a hot, wasteful bath. An overpowering but not unpleasant smell of cherry blossoms and sweet candy fills the air when you toss the crumbly spheres into the water.

            The nerves in your bum leg are going off in discordant symphonies of pain. The hot water in the tub raises them in a brief crescendo and then quiets them. Every part of you is aching from your botched escape attempt. You can’t even lie down in the tub because your back is so bruised from falling down the cliff. For a while you just switch from lying on your right side to your left side before giving up and sitting on your ass.

            After soaking for only a few minutes the water is a murky, brownish pink from all the filth sloughing off you. Ordinarily there’s nothing more relaxing than getting really clean after a hard day. But not a day like this. Hoo boy, no.

            When your fingers are all pruny and there’s no more grime clinging to your skin you drain the tub and rinse off. Your leg still aches like anything but not as badly as it did pre-bath. The once comforting nooks and crannies of your little home have nothing to offer you now. This place is less like a nest and more like a cage.

            As soon as you’re dry you rewrap your leg, pull on your loosest, softest pajamas, and retreat to your bedroom. Cell is still standing on the grass. When you look out the window, he looks up at you. The shutters drop into place with a thin rattle. Better to have an ineffectual barrier than no barrier at all.

            You can feel a big honking depression nap coming on. You’ll conk out for several hours and wake up feeling more tired than you did before. As if it would be possible to feel more tired than you do right now. At least now you have a really good excuse for being depressed. At least it isn’t just the inscrutable whims of your shitty, fractured brain. As you drop down into a restless slumber, you feel oddly pleased to finally have a reason for feeling so completely awful.

  * • •



Six and half hours after cocooning yourself in blankets, you awake, sweaty and still nervous from half-remembered dreams. It’s dark out. Clouds are smothering the light of the stars. At first you can’t even remember what goddamn day it is. When you start to stir, so do all of your new injuries. All the scrapes and bruises and pulled muscles light up in bright electric bursts.

            You’re still alive. Somehow.

            Peeking through the shutters, you can see a campfire burning not far from your house. A neatly stripped tree trunk lies next to it. You can just make out your favorite cane leaning against the wood. Next to the cane, of course, stands Cell, with his arms crossed and his eyes trained on your window.

            When you open the front door, he’s looking right at you. He holds out one hand and gestures as if to say, “May I?” You nod. With the merest flick of his pointer finger he levitates you the twenty or so feet to the campfire, setting you down on the log right next to your cane.

            “Glad to have this back,” you say.

            He nods. His weird pink eyes are boring into you.

            “You take the bark off this log yourself? Didn’t take you for much of a carpenter.”

            He doesn’t respond. Somehow, silent Cell is worse than mocking Cell. He sits down beside you, his knees angled toward yours.

            “Do you know what it’s like to be denied your fundamental purpose?”

            You’re not sure what you were expecting, but it definitely wasn’t this.

            “I would assume not,” he continues, “since there’s no reason for you to exist. Oh, don’t look at me like that. You weren’t created; you were born: a product of random chance. Everything about me was designed for the specific purposes of conquering and destroying. I was created to be the ultimate marriage of form and function. Perfection, in a word.”

            He falls silent, as if expecting you to agree. Fat chance. Frowning, he continues.

            “You might remember that I was unfortunately foiled in the pursuit of my life goals.”

            “Speaking as someone who likes being alive, I’d like to say it was very fortunate that you were stopped.”   

            He glares. His eyes are like laser points. They might actually be forming lasers at this very moment. You would never know before it was too late.

            “As I was saying, it was unfortunate for me. A ragtag bunch of idiots destroyed me and sent me to hell. It was indeed hell I found myself in. I’ll spare you the details of that particular ordeal. Suffice to say I spent a veritable eternity trapped and helpless, unable to escape, unable to cry out, convinced that it would never end. Maybe you can imagine what it was like.”

            From fifteen years back, an unbearable weight crushes your left leg all over again. Fluorescent lights are ringing and the promise of Armageddon is echoing all over the world. The moment passes.

            “Yeah, I can imagine,” you mutter.

            “Then, as if by magic, it was all over. I was alone in deep space. I was alive again. I have some hypotheses as to why, but the ‘why’ doesn’t much matter now. All it would have taken was one cell, preserved and frozen in the void, to bring me back.”

            The fire is crackling merrily. You’re interested in his story in spite of yourself.

            “So of course, I returned to Earth, eager to fulfill my purpose at long last. I was more careful this time. There would be no grand entrances or theatrical announcements. This time I employed stealth. With my ki so muted as to be undetectable, I peeked in on the fools who dared to challenge me so long ago. And do you know what I found?”

            His voice has a strange edge to it. It’s the least boastful he’s sounded yet.

            “They’re all doing very well. The one who killed me has an infant daughter now. And they’ve all improved so much I would barely stand a chance against their children. It’s like I never existed to them. The cities I destroyed have been rebuilt. Even the memorials to the dead are in disrepair. My creator was killed before I reached maturity, so even that reunion was denied me. It’s like I never existed at all.”

            There’s a very human expression of anguish on his face, of sadness mixed with anger. He closes his eyes. The tension in his cheeks slackens. When he looks at you again, his mouth curls into a ghost of a smile, and he’s a monster again.

            “Except for you. You’ve held on to that memory. That’s why you never fixed your leg. I never disappeared for you.”

            That out of body feeling is creeping up on you again. When Cell takes your hand in his, you jump a mile. He doesn’t let go.

            “You weren’t afraid of me. The only other people who weren’t afraid of me were stupid children, or they thought they had a chance of killing me. Even the warriors who destroyed me were afraid. You knew what I was capable of. You lay before me defenseless and bleeding and yet you weren’t afraid. Why?”

            You’re really not sure what to tell him. You’re not even sure yourself.

            “Why, dear one?”

            His thumb is making slow circles on your palm. This can’t be happening.

            “None of this makes sense,” you murmur.

            “Why do you have an Adam’s apple?” you blurt out.

            He pulls back in confusion and lets go of your hand.

            “Why do you have teeth?” you ask. “Or eyes? If you’re supposed to be a weapon then why do you have any human parts at all? So what if you came back from the dead. I don’t understand why you look the way you do.”

            Cell cocks his head, seemingly incredulous that this is the thing that’s tripping you up.

            “Have you ever read _Frankenstein_?” he asks. “The doctor was a fool. Brilliant, but sorely lacking in creativity. When the monster demanded a female counterpart, the doctor despaired of two abominations procreating and populating the Earth with beasts. He couldn’t conceive of making an incomplete being. Dr. Gero was rather a lot like the fictional doctor in that respect. For him, there was a very specific mold of creation with which he was working. I was never just a killing machine. I’m not just a perfect weapon; I’m _perfect_.”

            When he calls himself perfect, it sounds like he’s trying to convince the both of you.

            “Perfect isn’t real,” you say. “There’s no depth to it.”

            “Isn’t there?”

            His voice is altogether too husky. The fire is guttering lower. A log cracks and you turn to look at it.

            “Look at me.”

            You stay fixed on the dying flames.

            “LOOK AT ME,” he hisses.

            He grabs your head with both hands and jerks your face up within an inch of his own. The little veins in his eyes are purple. His mouth is a hard line of fury and his hands smell faintly of rubbing alcohol. For a few seconds the two of you are frozen like that, staring into each other’s eyes. Then his grip relaxes and he slides his fingers into your hair.

            “What are you–” is all you’re able to say before he plants his lips on yours.

            It’s a very chaste kiss at first. Even though he catches you with your mouth open his remains shut for several seconds. Then he parts his lips just a little, and teases the tip of his tongue into your mouth. You’re immediately struck more by how awkward he is than by the fact that he’s kissing you at all. It’s like he’s never done this before.

            Holy shit. He’s never done this before.

            He’s a psychopathic, genocidal murderer and you just became his first kiss.

            Taking your lack of resistance as a cue to continue, Cell entwines one hand completely in your hair and slides the other down your back, tracing the very edge of the giant bruise there. His unnaturally smooth tongue circles yours and he tastes like nothing at all.

            It’s been such a long time since anyone’s kissed you. It’s not as if you’re actually attracted to him, of course. Of course. It’s just…it’s been so long. The fact that you aren’t instantly repulsed by this is a testament to how starved you are for basic, flesh to flesh contact. If his face even counts as flesh: his surprisingly soft face with its pliable lips.

            You reach one hand up to his cheek and hold it there. It certainly feels like flesh. At your touch, he pulls you closer, tilting his head down to compensate for the height difference and deepening the kiss substantially. Your tongue is in his mouth now. You put it there. You’re kissing him back, matching him movement for movement and clicking your teeth against his.

            Suddenly his mouth is on your neck, planting gentle, sucking kisses tracing the path of a tendon. When he finds the spot of downy hair just behind your ear you gasp just a little. He makes a satisfied noise. Then his hands are under your thighs and he hoists you up into his lap, your legs straddling what would be a very sensitive area on a human. A moment later and his fingers are threading through your hair again.

            If you keep your eyes shut and ignore the hard plates of exoskeleton on his arms and legs, you can almost pretend that this is normal. You’re just two lonely people who found each other and he’s just a man with a gentle touch. Not a monster, not a murderer. No one’s been kidnapped. But now your injuries are singing out in fractured tones, and the initial shock is dying down. This is real. This is happening.

            “Do you have any idea what it is you’re doing?”

            Your voice is thin and whispery. Cell pauses, his lips still brushing against your skin.

            “Is it not to your liking?” he asks.

            His fingers are tangled deep in your hair. No one’s stroked your scalp like that in years. You were so sure you didn’t miss it at all—that you were content in your little bubble—until this monster put his hands on you.

            “I just don’t understand why you’re doing this.”

            “Because I want to.”

            He breathes against your neck. You wonder why he needs to breathe at all if he can survive in deep space.

            “You did a good job today,” he whispers. “With your little escape attempt. I’m glad you tried. I would have killed you if you hadn’t tried.”

            He punctuates each sentence with a long kiss, each one going lower and lower until his mouth is under your collarbone. He pulls your shirt collar down and nuzzles his face against your bare skin. Goosebumps are erupting all over you. Without even asking he rips your shirt in two. It’s the touch of his teeth on your breast that finally wrests a cry from you.

            He pauses at that, not moving his mouth but not clamping down again either. Slowly, careful not to smack you with the weird crown of his head, he raises his eyes back up to yours and just gazes at you. You’ve seen starving dogs that didn’t look as hungry as he does right now. You wonder why you didn’t see it any earlier.

            “So that’s what all this was for. Some kind of fucked up self-indulgent mating ritual.”

            He shrugs. He’s not denying it.

            “If I had appeared at your door with flowers, how would that have gone?”

            Before you can answer his mouth is on yours again, kissing slow and deep. Your heart is beating in your throat and you notice, in an uncomfortably present way, that arousal is stirring in your gut like a clutch of worms exposed to sunlight. Ashamed, but still full of desire, you pull your burning face away from him.

            “Did you really have to drag me out into the middle of nowhere?”

            He gives the slightest of nods.

            “I needed to be sure there was nothing else for you. I thought if I could make you feel truly helpless and alone, you might come to me. And now here you are. In my arms. Kissing me back.”

            Remember. Remember everything he’s done. The people killed and absorbed, the cities razed. The threats of global destruction. None of it helps. You were so focused on not being frightened of him when you should have been worrying about something far, far worse. Wary of all the wrong things.

_You really think I came to find you—watched you in the woods for weeks after my return from hell—because I want to kill you?_

            Stupid, stupid, stupid. He told you right then and there. He never wanted to kill you: not fifteen years ago and not now. If only you had shut up. If only you had kept your stupid goddamn mouth shut he never would have noticed you and then he wouldn’t be here now, holding you, holding you in a way that isn’t unpleasant at all, wreaking havoc with your instincts and making you feel such deep, horrible shame for even entertaining the thought of—

            “If you would like to retreat I won’t stop you.”

            His voice jolts you back to reality.

            “You seem quite horrified by something. I know this is all very sudden and I have no desire to force you to do anything you do not want to do wholeheartedly.”

            Without saying a word, you detach yourself from him and grab your cane. He just lets you go. Before he can ask about floating you back you’re hobbling across the grass as fast as your stupid legs will take you. He lets you do that too. Just like he let you try to escape.

            Shutting the front door behind you does little calm you. Your heart is still beating out of control. How long will he let you have this house? You know what he wants from you now. It’s terrifying. Almost as terrifying as the fact that you know you would let him do it. This situation he’s put you in has revealed that you have a capacity for corruption you were never previously aware of. He’s a monster. If you want to fuck him, then what does that make you?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, if anyone finds anything particularly nonsensical in this chapter or the previous one, feel free to let me know. I was drunk as shit when I uploaded them.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which boning occurs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> His touch both consoles and devastates me...Eat me, drink me; thirsty, cankered, goblin-ridden, I go back and back to him to have his fingers strip the tattered skin away and clothe me in his dress of water, this garment that drenches me, its slithering odour, its capacity for drowning.  
> —Angela Carter

You spend the next two days holed up inside, avoiding the windows and tensing at every gust of wind and every animal cry that sounds from the woods. You’ll have to leave at some point. If you don’t, Cell will probably break the door down and come to get you. You know that his façade of decorum runs shallow and fragile. He’ll only stay patient and “gentlemanly” as long as he’s getting what he wants.

            Right now you’re giving him what he wants: a dramatic reaction. If he wants you afraid, then he’s finally succeeded at that as well. You’re afraid of what you want. More than that, you’re afraid of what he wants.

            When the weather is fine and the sun is high you make a decision. If this is going to happen it’s going to happen on your terms. Alone in your room, you strip out of your unwashed pajamas and put on an old gray shift dress with nothing underneath. It’s boxy and unflattering and you know you won’t care if it gets torn to shreds. Then you dig a spare blanket out of the linen closet and go to meet your fate.

            Outside is warm. Already you can feel sweat collecting under your breasts. He’s still standing by the charred remains of the campfire. Smirking. Of course he’s smirking.

            “Are you going to invite me in?”

            “No,” you tell him. “That place is still mine. Let’s go somewhere else.”

            He scowls. In an instant he’s by your side, following you west into the woods.

            “Someday I’ll fuck you in your own bed. That’s a promise. You’ll beg me to do it. But, until then…”

            It’s jarring hearing him say the word ‘fuck.’ Somehow you expected he’d dress it up a little more, but no. He doesn’t want to ravish you or any nonsense like that; he wants to _fuck_ you. With a hot burst of shame, you can feel your blood rushing in opposite directions: to your cheeks, and to your crotch. It’s absurd how much you want him.

            When you’re far enough in the woods that you can’t see the meadow when you look back, you throw down the blanket and step out of your sandals. Cell takes your cane and hangs it on a nearby branch before circling behind you. He squeezes you against his chest. Your head doesn’t even come up to his shoulders. His hands find your breasts and you lean into him, sighing.

            “I have no desire to force you to do anything,” he says.

            “But it’s not like that would stop you. You’re gonna do what you wanna do.”

            You can’t see his face, but it feels somehow like he’s smiling.

            “It seems you understand me a little better than I thought.”

            Quick as a flash, Cell whisks you off your feet and cradles you against him like he first did only a few days ago. Then he lays you out on the blanket like a butcher laying out a choice cut of meat. Somehow, you feel less exposed naked than you did when you lay before him covered in dinosaur blood and ready to die. He eyes you with his flashing violet gaze as if he means to eat you alive. And surely, that is what he means to do.

            He kneels. He runs his fingers lightly over the mottled, puckered skin of your leg and the cleft in your knee where the joint sticks and shudders whenever you walk. There are odd patches where hair never grows and his fingers slow over those. He cradles your brittle ankle in his enormous palm. His face is totally impassive.

            “You’re not sorry,” you say.

            “No, I’m not.”

            There’s no hesitation when he says it, but he doesn’t smile either. The sight of your ruined limb—his fault, though he never meant for it to happen—truly inspires no feeling in him. Then he looks elsewhere. The sight of another part of you inspires a great many feelings in him, if his starving expression is anything to judge by.

            With his eyes locked on yours, he leans down and begins to devour you.

            The first touch of his tongue against your clitoris happens like a bucket of cold water to your face. You gasp so loudly it’s comical and he chuckles into your crotch before continuing with his ministrations. His tongue is short but he uses it well. Almost too well. In an embarrassingly short span of time you’re shuddering and gritting your teeth to keep from crying out. Out of nowhere he reaches up with one hand and forces his thumb into your mouth.

            “Don’t hold back. I want to hear every single noise you make because of me.”

            Then he returns to your clit with renewed gusto and you let out a series of moans around his finger. When you quiet, he digs his thumbnail into the inside of your cheek and wrests a cry of pain from you. That really gets him going.

            Seconds later your first assisted orgasm in over a decade rips through your body and you scream, arching your back violently before falling limp under him. He pauses, his tongue still brushing against your flesh as you shiver and shake. When you reach down and touch his head he lunges forward and pins both your wrists against the blanket.

            His eyes are all aglow and his mouth is twisted up into an ugly smile. Before you can stretch up to kiss him—to taste yourself on his mouth—he runs his tongue all the way around his lips and buries his teeth in your neck, biting and sucking hard enough to draw blood. You scream again and swear at the sudden pain. It won’t just leave a mark; it’ll leave an open wound.

            Just as quick as he subdued you he retreats, rocking back on his heels and shaking with silent laughter. His hand moves to the black oval of his crotch. The covering disappears inside him. Then he unfurls his dick from within the sweltering darkness of his body, and boy howdy is it ever a sight to see.

            The coloration reminds you of a crocus. Or a pitcher plant. It’s not a human phallus, that’s for sure. It’s perfectly smooth, with no glans or foreskin, darkening from snow white at the base to a smoky lilac at the tip. It almost looks like an artisanal dildo. Or an abstract sculpture. It glistens with mucus, slimy and dripping.

            The soft, wet flesh emerging from his crotch brings to mind poisonous snails and disembowelment. It’s disgusting. You want every last inch of it inside you as soon as possible.

            You once had a slightly oversized sex toy. It was not as large as his member, to say the least.

            “You gonna fit that…whole thing…inside me?”

            Your breath is still coming in pants and gasps from his previous attentions. He says nothing, only grins, and moves forward until his knees are on either side of your ass.

            You’re splayed open, feet resting on his chest plates, not ready—you’ll never be ready—but waiting for him nonetheless. The very tip of his phallus rubs against your entrance and you shudder. He starts to push his way in…

            …and all of a sudden he grabs you by the hips and throws the both of you backwards so he’s lying on the blanket and you’re hovering awkwardly over him, supported only by the crushing grip of his hands on your pelvis.

            “Not like that.”

            He shakes his head, baring his teeth in a grin.

            “I want to see your face when I penetrate you.”

            Without warning he releases you and you fall onto him, around him, and for the third time in the last fifteen minutes you yell at the top of your lungs. It’s not a wholly unpleasant feeling. It’s just overwhelming. Your eyes are shut tight. You’ve never been so filled in all your life and you’re barely halfway down.

            With a great deal of whimpering and gasping, you slide all the way to his hilt. It’s incredible. When you squint to look at him you find his face is blank but for his predatory grin. His eyes are glassy, his manner more like a wax mannequin than a living thing. Gingerly, mindful of how fragile you are especially in comparison to his near indestructible body, you begin to rock your hips up and down, just a little, just enough to better feel him inside you.

            Cell’s head drops back against the blanket. His hands come to rest on your hips but he doesn’t guide you. He just lets you move as you please and for a couple minutes the only sounds at all are your heavy breaths as you fuck him.

            Then he breaks the silence. His voice is soft and evil.

            “I lied. I don’t really care if you think I’m rude. You’re just a temporary distraction until I achieve my next goal. I’m not sorry for a single thing I’ve done to you. And I’m especially not sorry for what I’m about to do.”

            Before you can react he rakes his fingers down your back hard enough to draw ten distinct bloody lines. Spots dance behind your eyelids and a strangled cry erupts from your throat. Cell forces your body down against his, seizes your shoulders hard enough to bruise, and begins fucking you harder and faster than you ever thought possible.

            The sound of his chitinous body smacking against your soft flesh is obscene in the silent woods. It’s made all the more obscene by your uncontainable yelling and whining. He feels deeper with every thrust. It’s unbearable and you never want it to end. You couldn’t quiet down if you wanted to. As long as he’s working you over like this you won’t be able to stop vocalizing unless he rips your throat out. The thought of him doing that—killing you so violently mid-coitus—fills you with the most confusing mix of fear and lust you’ve ever felt.

            Cell scratches his nails across your back, cross hatching the previous wounds, and you shriek so loudly your throat burns.

            He’s growling something with every thrust, a single syllable repeated until it’s a mad chant echoing through the trees.

            “ _Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, MINE, MINE_ —”

            He bellows, his whole body curling inward, and then he truly fills you, spilling hot and fast deep in your guts. Spent, he falls limp as a broken toy, his cock still pulsing inside you and swelling a little rather than shrinking. His arms are still fast around you, pressing uncomfortably into the map of cuts he made on your back. The wounds are singing, shrill and bright in concert with the throbbing of the flesh between your legs.

            You’re satisfied. This is what you wanted, and now it’s happened. If you weren’t already headed to hell, you’re certainly going there now. You willingly surrendered yourself to a monster. At least that’s over. You chose. You probably won’t have to make many more choices from now on.

            “You’re going to make me very happy,” Cell murmurs.

            And then his teeth are on your neck again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which things take a turn for the worse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **IMPORTANT**  
> Feel free to consider the previous chapter an ending, of a sort. It gets worse from here on out. Cell is a killer: a monster. This does not change because his plans require him to keep a human alive. I would specifically warn you about a murder and a rape in this chapter. I hope I do this heavier subject matter justice. If I don't, please feel free to shoot me a private message about it.
> 
> I lie above him and see the light from the fire sucked into the black vortex of his eye, the omission of light at the centre, there, that exerts on me such a tremendous pressure, it draws me inwards.  
> —Angela Carter

That night, bruised and bitten and exhausted beyond measure, you fall asleep the moment your head hits the pillow. Then you dream.

            A gigantic snake is eating a deer. The doe isn’t struggling. The serpent swallows it down, hind feet first, and the doe only turns its head to watch until its neck disappears into the snake’s neck. Eyes bright, the doe is wholly consumed by the snake, which re-hinges its jaw and flicks its forked tongue in and out. Its belly bulges obscenely.

            Another moment and the snake begins to convulse. The doe bursts out from within, coated with gore and eyes glittering in the strange light of sleep. As the snake bleeds the doe stands firm, unmoved by the death of its would be killer.

  * • •



A couple days later you approach him again.

            “Up near the cliff. There’s a place I wanted to go back to if I ever got the chance. Beautiful scenery. Take me there? It would be nice. You know I couldn’t escape if I tried.”

            He gives you almost an hour alone, wandering through the trees and listening to the far off burble of a stream. Well, you’re never really alone as long as he’s watching from afar, but it’s still nice. You know Cell won’t be so crass as to demand compensation, at least not verbally. He says it with his hands when he comes to get you.

            He fucks you from behind on the edge of the cliff, biting hard into your shoulder. His scream echoes across the scrubland when the climax seizes him. Afterward he leans you back against his chest, absentmindedly playing with your breasts and sucking on the back of your neck.

            “Enjoy it while you can. People will come looking for me.”

            He hums against your skin.

            “Will they? You’ve been out of touch for a long time. They might just think you killed yourself. And it’s not like anyone’s looking for me. You’re the only one who knows I’m alive.”

            It certainly is a strange little microcosm the two of you are in. After your first tryst he left you alone for a whole day. The morning after that a sack of assorted groceries appeared on the front step. That confirmed that he really is planning on keeping you around for a long time. Otherwise he wouldn’t expend any effort toward keeping you alive. Still, it’s completely bizarre to imagine this legendary monster going out of his way to steal milk and eggs for you so you don’t die.

            “You’ll slip up. It can’t be easy keeping your ki suppressed all the time.”

            Cell chuckles.

            “You underestimate my self control. It’s only a challenge when I’m inside you.”

            That sends a thrill of revulsion down your spine. Hearing him talk about it is somehow worse than actually doing it. When he fucks you, your mind empties of everything but the physical sensations. Before and after are when the troublesome thoughts come a-knocking.

            “Is that what the screaming is all about? Letting loose whatever energy you can?”

            “No. That’s only because you feel so good.”

            His mouth returns to your neck. He sucks a small bruise into something huge and livid, making you whine in pain and pleasure. You can feel his penis reemerging from its hidden sheath. Very gingerly, you peel yourself away from him and turn around, straddling his lap and pinning his length against his belly as you raise your face up to his.

  * • •



A couple days after that you suggest the same outing, and Cell acquiesces with a smile that’s downright pleasant. Still, you’re glad when he takes off and leaves you to your wandering. Even though the two of you seem to have achieved some kind of equilibrium you can only tolerate him for so long before you get the shakes.

            Today you decide to go west instead of east. The weather is a fair bit windier than it was before. Goosebumps are breaking out all over your legs and on your bare arms. Your shorts and tank top definitely don’t provide enough coverage. The sunlight flickers as the foliage rustles in the breeze. After a few minutes, the birds start chirping, and you know you’re as alone as you can be for a while. The ground is firm under your cane and the way is easy.

            About twenty minutes into your quiet walk, a foreign shape partially concealed behind an enormous bramble patch catches your eye. It takes you a long, long moment to realize what it is you’re looking at.

            It’s a hoverbike. Crouched next to it is a curly-haired young man—maybe nineteen or twenty—rifling through one of the side compartments. Nausea spirals through your gut. If you turn around right now and back away quietly, he might not see you. Nothing else needs to happen. It could be like he was never here.

            A twig cracks under your foot and he looks up. His eyes go wide when his gaze locks with yours and his jaw drops.

            “What are you doing all the way out in the wilderness?” he asks.

            “You need to get out of here,” you blurt out. “You’re not supposed to be here. There’s not supposed to be another person out here.”

            Your voice is quavering. If what you had to say wasn’t so important you might throw up on the spot.

            He looks at your leg and his expression changes from bewildered to horrified. This horror only increases when he sees the bruises and bites marking your shoulders.

            “You’re hurt,” he says. “Come on, I’ll get you to a hospital.”

            He takes your hand and tries to lead you to his bike but you pull away.

            “No. You need to leave. You need to get on that bike and get as far away from here as you possibly can.”

            “If something’s going on, I should—”

            “No! No. You don’t understand. It isn’t safe for you here.”

            He isn’t listening. He has no idea and you have no time to explain what’s going on.

            “You have to go _right now_. Stop talking to me, get on the bike, and leave. Please. Forget you saw me.”

            “I can’t just leave you here. I—”

            The birds are silent. He’s nearby.

            “Yes you can! Go. Just go. Get away while you still can.”

            Now tears are streaming down your face. He grabs hold of the un-bruised parts of your shoulders and starts telling you to calm down and take deep breaths. You shake your head and step out of his grasp, quivering and lightheaded.

            “Shut up. Shut the fuck up and listen to me. If you stay here another second, you will die. You have to get out of here before he finds you.”

            “Before who–”

            That’s as far as he gets before he gasps and staggers back. You don’t need to hear the squeaking feet to know that Cell has just landed directly behind you. You whirl around. His expression is perfectly blank. Cell raises one finger and shoots the tiniest beam of energy at the bike. The engine ignites and the bike clatters to the ground, belching out gray smoke.

            “Please,” you say. “Please, he has no idea…”

            The stranger is frozen in place, trembling and wide-eyed.

            “Do you know him?” Cell asks.

            “No,” you reply. “I’ve never seen him before. Please, don’t–”

            Cell slaps one hand over your mouth and digs his fingers into the side of your face, silencing you. Panicking, you claw at his hand a split second before he knees you in the stomach.

            “Stop it,” he hisses. “You’re acting like a child.”

            Then he lets you go and you drop to the ground, coughing and clutching your stomach. It’s a small miracle that the vomit stays down.

            Cell grabs the young man by the collar and interrogates him. The stranger stammers out that he’s a college student doing a geographical survey. He doesn’t live anywhere nearby. He came here alone. He has family. He has a fiancée. He swears he’ll never tell a soul. No one will ever know what he saw out in the woods.

            “Don’t kill him,” you beg. “You don’t have to let him go, just don’t kill him. Please. I can’t have that on my conscience.”

            Cell looks down at you and sneers.

            “What would you have me do with him instead?”

            “I…I don’t know. Bring him back with us. He can stay in the house with me. You don’t have to kill him. Maybe he can be useful, just please–”

            “You heard him. He has friends and colleagues who know he’s out here. If he goes missing, people will come looking for him. If they don’t find a body, they’ll keep looking until they find something else, and that will be the most tedious nuisance,” Cell explains.

            “Besides, do you really want another person infringing upon our time together? Am I not enough for you? He would only be a waste of resources. I don’t need you forming unnecessary bonds with anyone else.”

            His voice is mocking and hateful. You know you can’t convince him, but you can’t stop yourself.

            “Please, I’ll–I’ll do…”

            You were going to say, _I’ll do anything_ , but you’ve already given yourself so completely to him that there’s nothing left for you to offer. You know it. He knows it, and he looks at you with such scorn it curdles your very blood.

            Cell picks the student up by the neck with one hand and grabs the hoverbike with the other. When he turns toward the cliff, you lurch to your feet and stumble after him, begging him for mercy as the poor kid writhes in his grasp. The bike goes over the cliff and strikes the ground below with a distant crash. The kid’s eyes are practically bulging out of their sockets and his face is turning blue.

            Before you can form another coherent sentence, Cell snaps the student’s neck with a revolting crack, and tosses the body over the edge.

            That sound reverberates down into your bones. You don’t scream. You don’t fall to your knees, because your bum leg makes that difficult, so you collapse backwards.

            You didn’t even learn his name.

            It’s not as if you had forgotten what a monster Cell is; it’s just quite something to be confronted with it like this. Him telling you about killing a park ranger you never saw is nothing like this. Nothing like this at all.

            “That was extremely disrespectful of you,” he says.

            He crouches down and grabs a fistful of your hair.

            “I think you’ve forgotten who’s in charge here. Frankly, I’m offended that you thought you could convince me of anything.”

            Your shock is just barely giving way to anger.

            “What kind of person would I be if I didn’t try to save him?”

            “A much less irritating one,” he spits.

            “If I didn’t think it would break my hand I’d punch you.”

            His mouth twists up into a wicked smile at that, and he presses his forehead against yours.

            “Is that so?”

            “I would hurt you if I could,” you mumble.

            Why you haven’t gone into a full-blown panic attack at this point is a goddamn mystery. His mouth is up against yours but he isn’t kissing you: just grinning.

            “You’re an insolent, ungrateful wretch. If I didn’t need you around, you’d be joining him at the bottom of the cliff. A lesser being would have disposed of you by now.”

            _Why does he need me around?_

            “So what you’re saying is you’re not going to kill me.”

            He frowns.

            “Not yet, but—”

            Before you can really consider the far-reaching consequences of your actions, you jerk your head back as far as it will go and spit in Cell’s face.

            “And you thought I was irritating before.”

            He smooths one hand down his face before wiping it on your hair.

            “You’re going to pay for that, dear one.”

            The next thing you know he’s shoving your face down into the dirt and pressing against you from behind. The hand that isn’t holding you down is groping around the waistband of your shorts. Off they go, down around your knees like shackles.

            “You’ve forgotten your place in this arrangement. I’ve been far too lenient with you.”

            You’re not surprised that he’s doing this to you. Just disappointed that your illusion of equilibrium crumbled so quickly. It would have been nice to pretend for a little while longer that this was a tolerable way to live.

            “No more outings after this. You’re not going to leave that meadow again. In fact, I don’t think you’re going to leave that house again. Tonight will be your last night of privacy. Tomorrow I’m going to fuck you in your own bed and that will be the end of it.”

            “For the record,” you wheeze, squirming a little under the pressure of his hand, “just so it’s clear, I don’t consent. I’m saying no to this.”

            He pauses, then slides into you with no small amount of resistance. It hurts. Not as much as a vending machine falling on your leg, but it still hurts. You grit your teeth to keep from crying out. The pain largely fades once he gets a rhythm going. He keeps up a steady stream of intimidating nonsense, hissing into your ear about how you’re his and you’ll never, ever escape. But you’re not listening. You’re thinking about how he didn’t know you had a bug-out bag hidden in your house. You’re thinking about all the other things in your house he doesn’t know about. He just admitted that he needs you alive: a critical mistake. He was so sure you would give up after your first botched escape attempt. He was wrong. And he doesn’t even know it. If he was capable of recognizing this, he wouldn’t be Cell.

            In the moments after he empties himself inside you, you resolve that this will be the last time he ever fucks you: literally or figuratively. Even though you’re shaking with disgust and barely conscious it’s all you can do to keep from smiling.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which it comes to an abrupt end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> great big honking warning for suicide in here  
> there is a suicide in this chapter  
> please proceed with caution

Before he shoves you through the threshold of your front door he hisses, “Get cleaned up. I’ll see you at dawn.”

            As soon as he shuts the door your face splits in a wretched grin.

            He’s backed you into a corner. On some fundamental level he doesn’t understand how similar the two of you are. Oh sure, you’re not a murderer, and you have no grand, world-shattering ambitions, but you’d both rather destroy the game than lose it. When he admitted that he needs you around—for what reason, it doesn’t really matter—he revealed how you could turn the tables on him. He has you beat in physical strength and ruthlessness, but unlike him, you have no appropriate fear of death.

            Under your bathroom sink is a basket full of ten years worth of half-used and discarded medications. After some frantic digging, you pull out two dusty orange bottles and hobble to the kitchen.

            For a while you were on antidepressants. Those gave you nausea, so the doctor prescribed something to settle your stomach. You scrapped both prescriptions when the nausea suppressant made it impossible to throw up even when you needed to.

            There’s still a few pills left in that particular bottle. You swallow them all and wait half an hour for the unpleasant numbness to kick in.

            Now comes the most crucial part of the endeavor. This second bottle—its peeling label festooned with warning after warning in large, unfriendly letters—has frequently been a centerpiece of your guiltiest fantasies: the ones you know you would never act on, and yet you keep returning to them when you can’t sleep and it’s difficult to imagine that life will ever be better. But then, you could never muster up a good enough reason to do it. The sun always rises. Everything is always better in the morning.

            But now, of course, everything will not be better in the morning. The sun will rise and Cell will be knocking at your door, forcing you to take part in whatever twisted plan he has cooked up. The worst isn’t over. Your home is not your home anymore.

            The sleeping pills were quite effective back in the day. They made you sleep through the night, and often through the morning and into the afternoon. After you weaned yourself off them you still had half a bottle left. You were supposed to throw them away, but you never did. They might not even still work. Maybe they’ve expired. The date printed on the side is smudged and illegible.

            In the kitchen you divide the remaining pills into three ceramic bowls. Your hands are steady as you crush them into a fine green powder with the bottom of a glass. It’s a pleasant, artificial green, like nursery walls. The first bowl of powder goes into a cup of milk. The milk doesn’t mask the flavor very well, and it’s a trial to get it all down. You try juice with the second bowl. The juice one is worse. So, you mix the third bowl into another cup of milk and gulp it down as slowly as you can stand.

            Nothing to do now but wait. The bottle says it takes about an hour for the effects to kick in. Given the life-ending quantity you just consumed, it probably won’t take that long. You tuck the bottle into your shorts pocket. Your gut is buzzing, like when you sleep in a strange position and wake up with a useless leg. TV static and insect wings. The feeling ebbs and flows, slowly leaking into the rest of your body.

            It’s quiet in the house. Never been this quiet before. You walk from room to room, slow enough that you’re barely limping, and touch all the possessions that you never treasured as much as you do right now. Soon it’ll all be gone. You’ll be gone. Here, a painting you bought at a flea market. Here, a book your parents sent you that you lied about liking. Here, a rug stolen from your college roommate. You should have stayed in touch.

            Pain now. Pain everywhere inside you. Not stabbing, not yet, but ever-present and unignorable. Things are shutting down: things that can’t be started back up again. The air is syrupy and hot.

            You wish so fervently that there was a way to let anyone know what happened. You wish you could tell someone how badly you wanted to stay alive, but there was no other option. There was only one way to escape. You wish you didn’t have to die. Oh, you wish you could stay alive!

            It’s no longer a relief to have an excuse to self-terminate. Being alive is so sweet. If there was any other way…

            Life is good. Life was good. Even when it was bad it was good. Morning always came.

            You check the time. It felt like only a few minutes, but according to the clock it’s been almost an hour already.

            It occurs to you, very dimly, that there’s one last thing you can do. You can rub it in his face. The pill bottle is still in your pocket. Staggering to the front door saps almost all your remaining energy. Your vision is a mosaic of dancing spots. Somehow, you manage to get the door open.

            “Hey,” you whisper.

            You toss the empty orange bottle into the night and Cell materializes in time to catch it.

            “What is this?” he asks.

            “That bottle used to have thirty sleeping pills in it. I swallowed all of them about an hour ago. Crushed them up to make them stay down easier. Now, you can keep me all to yourself and watch me die, or you can take me to the nearest hospital and let me go. Choice is yours.”

            The words tumble from your mouth like dead leaves. It has never been easier holding his gaze than it is right now. He can’t blast his way out of this particular conundrum. He smirks, unbelieving, partly obscured by the haze of luminous splotches.

            “You’re not serious.”

            “Well, I’m gonna be dead serious in a little while. Just you wait.”

            He scoffs. Shifts his weight from one foot to the next.

            “You wouldn’t.”

            “I already have.”

            The pill bottle drops to the ground. His face has contorts as if there’s a fault line running through the middle of it. He believes you. Before he can ask, you tell him why.

            “Not afraid of dying. Not like you. You can’t hold me here like this any more. One way or another, I’m going where you can’t follow me. Sure, you could die too, but we both know you’re heading to a different place than me.”

            The right side of his face is twitching and there’s a gurgle building deep in his throat. If he was human, you’d say he looks like he’s having a stroke. He takes one lurching step toward you and stops. His hands are shaking. He’s afraid.

            “Clock’s ticking,” you murmur.

            The air is as heavy as wet cement, and your head is full of sludge. Your innards are on fire. You want to throw up but you can’t. Well, _you_ don’t. Your body does. Your wants and your body’s wants have completely divorced. At some point, you’re not sure when, your vision failed. You’re lying on the ground now. The dirt smells sweet.

            “DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU’VE DONE?!”

            _Yeah,_ you think. _Killed myself, stupid. That’s what I did. Never should have admitted you needed me alive. You blew it. Super hard. Complete buffoonery._

            Arms under you, supporting you. The nothing smell of chitin and engineered flesh. You don’t want this to be the last thing you ever smell. Try focusing on the dirt.

            “You’re all I have,” he grinds out, his mouth up against yours.

            He’s not sad. He’s affronted. He doesn’t care about you. He’s obsessed.

            “Not my problem,” you hiss. “And you never had me.”

            There’s a roaring then, a combined roaring of air rushing past you and Cell screaming out his failure into the night.

_You lose, asshole._

            If you still had control over your facial muscles, you’d be smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe this happened. Thanks for going on this strange, awful journey with me. It really was supposed to be a plotless smutfic but at some point it spiraled completely out of control. WHOOPS. 
> 
> Now for some TMI: I suffer from major depressive disorder, which often manifests as passive suicide ideation. Sometimes I ask myself, "stinkerson_bramblepelt, how bad WOULD things have to get for you to off yourself?" In real life, I have no idea. In fiction, probably something like what happened in this fic. My brain is really good at manufacturing impossible worst case scenarios. 
> 
> As for Cell's plot, I had the idea that even Perfect Cell wasn't Dr. Gero's final backup plan. He's all about survival and improvement. Suppose Cell isn't up to the task he was designed for. He has a built in instinct to reproduce; he doesn't even know he's following instincts. He would create a hybrid offspring and then absorb it to increase his own power. I couldn't figure out how to make this explicitly clear in the fic so I just plain didn't do it. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Cell goes after the protagonist in particular because he is the shittiest bastard and he can't just ruin ANYONE'S life. It's personal. He would theoretically go after Eighteen but that would mean tangling with the Z fighters and he can't win that fight. 
> 
> I won't be writing more in this specific vein. I'm kind of sick of this story but I didn't want to leave it unfinished. God bless each and every one of you who read or commented or left kudos. The response to this has been overwhelming and it's honestly motivated me to write more original fiction.  
> <3 <3 <3


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